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An act supporting Catalonia\u2019s pro-independence symbol is organized as Barcelona hosts first game since Spain\u2019s World Cup win.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 27 Aug 2026<\/span>27 Aug 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Barcelona\u2019s World Cup winners with Spain were not honoured by the club at its first home game of the season because of an incident involving the \u201cestelada\u201d flag, Catalonia\u2019s pro-independence symbol.<\/p>\n Instead, an act supporting the estelada organized by a local group took place at Camp Nou stadium, which was laden with some 10,000 small flags that were handed to fans before Thursday\u2019s match. There were also some large flags and a few banners being displayed in the stands.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Fans raised the flags during Barcelona\u2019s anthem. Before the match, a few thousand fans marched with the pro-independence symbols near the Camp Nou, according to local media.<\/p>\n Barcelona has eight World Cup champions in its squad, the most of any club, and it planned a tribute to them before its Spanish league home opener against Athletic Bilbao.<\/p>\n Other Spanish clubs, in partnership with the Spanish soccer federation, had honoured their own World Cup champions in tributes that included the displaying of the World Cup trophy and the presence of Spain coach Luis de la Fuente.<\/p>\n Barcelona said it didn\u2019t intend to go ahead with the tribute after one of its fans had an estelada flag taken away from him by police before the team\u2019s game at Elche last weekend. The young fan confronted the officers, who hit him with batons before detaining him.<\/p>\n The Catalan club said it regretted the confiscation of the flags from its fans, saying the estelada \u201cis a legally endorsed symbol and its display constitutes a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression.\u201d It said \u201cit cannot in itself be considered an incitement to hatred or violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Barcelona said it considered the \u201cprocedure used to detain one of our fans was disproportionate and that the use of force lacked the necessary justification and appropriateness\u201d.<\/p>\n The incident quickly escalated to the political sphere, with local politicians expressing their opinions.<\/p>\n A Catalan organization handed out 10,000 estelada flags outside the Camp Nou before Thursday\u2019s game. Barcelona club president Joan Laporta highlighted the peaceful \u201cact of exaltation of the estelada\u201d, which he said represented the Catalans\u2019 right to freedom of expression. Barcelona was not directly organizing the event.<\/p>\n Laporta said it was not \u201cthe most appropriate moment\u201d to offer the tribute to the Spain players, adding that \u201csoccer must unite, not generate confrontations\u201d.<\/p>\n Laporta said the Spanish football federation understood the club\u2019s position.<\/p>\n The eight Barcelona players who helped Spain win its second World Cup trophy last month are Joan Garc\u00eda, Eric Garc\u00eda, Pedri, Pau Cubars\u00ed, Gavi, Rodri, Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An act supporting Catalonia\u2019s pro-independence symbol is organized as Barcelona hosts first game since Spain\u2019s World Cup win. Published On 27 Aug 202627 Aug 2026 Barcelona\u2019s World Cup winners with Spain were not honoured by the club at its first home game of the season because of an incident involving the \u201cestelada\u201d flag, Catalonia\u2019s pro-independence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1879,5321,41,1831,3057,384,810,5320,1518,2812,2357,40],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-barcelona","tag-catalan","tag-cup","tag-fans","tag-flag","tag-football","tag-news","tag-scraps","tag-spain","tag-support","tag-tribute","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n